Hybrid Means Testing Targeting System: The Case of Tunisia

378 | Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance

income wherever the contributor’s self-declared income is below a certain threshold. Consequently, in all these cases, the accuracy of HMT will likely diminish.32 The example of Tunisia illustrates the value added of carrying out an administrative data assessment as part of the program design (box 6.4).

BOX 6.4

Administrative Data Preconditions for Developing a Hybrid Means Testing Targeting System: The Case of Tunisia

Tunisia seemed to be ready for the implementation of a hybrid means testing (HMT) system. Formal employment represented about twothirds of total employment, the share of formal earnings in total earnings was about 80 percent, and half of the elderly were covered by the pension system. In 2018, the country embarked on a series of technical studies to assess the feasibility of introducing an HMT targeting system. On the design side, the exercise has been hampered by the lack of a household survey that collects information on income and, more generally, the lack of a survey that collects comprehensive information on income and assets. To assess the availability and quality of the administrative data, a technical assessment was conducted (CRES and World Bank 2018), the results of which are summarized in table B6.4.1. Information on the quality of the Social Registry data was recently updated during the preparation of the Tunisia COVID-19 Social Protection Emergency response support project.

The assessment confirmed the feasibility of introducing an HMT targeting system in Tunisia because of the quality of data, formal income coverage, and interoperability within and beyond the social protection systems. The National Pension and Social Security Fund, the agency that covers public sector employees (a fifth of total employment), keeps individual income records for the civil service (80 percent), but only the overall wage bill for publicly owned enterprises (20 percent). However, the individual records of the employees in publicly owned enterprises are at the enterprise level and could be mobilized in the future. In the case of the incomes declared to the National Social Security Fund, the pension agency for the private sector, income records were assessed as accurate in terms of coverage of affiliated

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